MANHATTAN -- A Kansas State University expert on Russia is available to comment on the upcoming presidential election in Russia, where Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is making another run at the presidency against the country's third richest man and New Jersey Nets owner, Mikhail Prokhorov, and other rivals.

Dale R. Herspring, university distinguished professor of political science, has an international reputation as one of America's leading experts on Russia and can answer questions regarding the country's elections and their implications for the future.

Herspring is a leading expert on civil-military relations. He has published 13 books and more than 100 articles dealing with Russian, American, German and Canadian civil-military relations. Herspring was the first Westerner invited by Russians to publish an article in a leading Russian military journal, written in Russian, critical of the current efforts to reform the Russian military. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a retired U.S. diplomat and Navy captain. During his time as a diplomat, he served at embassies in Warsaw and Moscow. While in the U.S. Navy, he participated in all of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. ship visits, and accompanied Adm. Dennis Blair, then the U.S. Pacific Command's commander-in-chief, on his official visit to Russia.

Herspring is currently finishing up his latest book, "Joint Responsibility and Civil-Military Relations, the American, Russian, German and Canadian Cases."